This much I know: Retailer, Tom Monaghan

I grew up on a farm in Tuam, Co Galway.

I learned a lot about trading and how to strike a bargain from my father at fairs and marts.

As a boy, I got badly injured playing GAA and spent 10 months in Cappagh hospital and ended up not finishing my schooling.

My greatest challenge was losing my father when he was only 51. I was 11. My mother was left to bring up seven children.

I think I had a bit of an inferiority complex about myself, I thought I should have done better at school. They were not happy days for me.

I’d an uncle in Dublin who got me a job in what is now Penneys on Mary Street. I ended up representing the store all over the country.

I met my wife Teresa when we were both out in Bray with friends. Next thing I knew, she was coming to visit me in the hospital when I was diagnosed with kidney stones.

I was very fortunate to marry into her magnificent family from Kilcock, Co Kildare.

My work ethic and drive comes from my family, on both sides. They are successful people: teachers and doctors and clerics.

I knew my job travelling around the country was not going to suit married life so I opened my first store in Dublin’s Grafton Street Arcade in 1960 selling cashmere and lambs-wool sweaters. We moved to Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Way off Dawson Street in 1986.

My biggest trial at work was recovering from the shock of being conned by a confidence trickster who made off with quite a lot of my money in the early days. I was quite naive about business back then. That was a rude awakening. I became very careful after that.

Teresa made huge sacrifices for me. We didn’t have a holiday for 12 years. When one of my sons was very young he said ‘you are the only dad on our road who goes to work on a Saturday’. It was hurtful to hear but I wasn’t always there when they were growing up.

I’ve done business with people from all over the world including well-known names like Dana Winter, Maureen O’Hara, Maureen Potter and Ronnie Drew. In the beginning the customers were 70% visitors, now I’d say it’s more like 40% visitors.

If I could be someone else for a day, I’d like to experience being the economist and former governor of the Central Bank, TK Whittaker. He was a terribly clever man.

The best advice I can give anyone is: don’t retire. If you must leave the job you are in by a certain age, do something else instead.

If I wasn’t in retail, I’d be farming.

I don’t drink (I saw too much of it in my youth), smoke, or play golf. But I do breed horses for my sins. I’ve had some great successes. I’ve been lucky and made a lot of money on a couple of horses.

I’m 93 now. I go to work every day. I’m up between 6am and 7am every morning, which means I usually go to bed by 10pm.

If I don’t feel like getting out of bed I simply repeat what my mother used to say whenever we complained: ‘thank god I’m able.’

We have two boys and two girls — Karen, Suzanne, Paul and Jim. Suzanne works with me.

I go to mass every day and I do believe in an afterlife.

So far life has taught me to keep something aside for the rainy day. I’ve gone through three recessions, but thankfully I’d sold some land during the good times and had put the money away.

I didn’t spend it. I still don’t have a credit card. I knew the rainy day would come, and it did. Teresa has had Alzheimer’s for 12 years but thankfully we have been able to care for her at home.

Tom Monaghan is one of Ireland’s longest serving retailers and has just relocated to a new shop on Dublin’s South Anne Street.